LITMIR.BIZ

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chest, loose and smelling of flowers.”

      Her breath seemed to stick in her throat as she recalled the same memory. They had both been bare to the waist. She could close her eyes and feel the hair-roughened muscles of his chest against her own softness as he kissed her and kissed her…

      “Sometimes,” he continued, “we get second chances.”

      “Do we?” she whispered.

      He touched her mouth gently. “Try not to dwell on what happened tonight,” he said. “I won’t let anyone hurt you, Sally.”

      That felt nice. She wished she could give him the same guarantee, but it seemed pretty ridiculous after her poor performance.

      He seemed to read the thought right in her mind, and he burst out laughing. “Listen, lady, when I get through with you, you’ll be eating bad men raw,” he promised. “You’re just a beginner.”

      “You aren’t.”

      “That’s true. And not only in self-defense,” he added dryly. “You’d better go in.”

      “I suppose so.” She picked at the buttons of the shirt he’d loaned her. “I’ll give it back. Eventually.”

      “You look nice in it,” he had to admit. “You can keep it. We’ll try some more of my clothes on you and see how they look.”

      She made a face at him as she opened the door. “Eb, do I have to go and see the sheriff?”

      “You do. I’ll pick you up after school. Don’t worry,” he said quietly. “He won’t eat you. He’s a nice man. But you must see that we can’t let Lopez’s people get away with this.”

      She felt a chill go down her arms as she remembered who Lopez was. “What will he do if I testify against his men?”

      “You let me worry about that,” Eb told her, and his eyes were like green steel. “Nobody touches you without going through me.”

      Her heart jumped right up into her throat as she stared at him. She was a modern woman, and she probably shouldn’t have enjoyed that passionate remark. But she did. Eb was a strong, assertive man who would want a woman to match him. Sally hadn’t been that woman at seventeen. But she was now. She could stand up to him and meet him on his own ground. It gave her a sense of pride.

      “Debating if it’s proper for a modern woman to like being protected?” he chided with a wicked grin.

      “You said yourself that none of us are invincible,” she pointed out. “I don’t think it’s a bad thing to admire a man’s strength, especially when it’s just saved my neck.”

      He made her feel confident, he gave her joy. It had been years since she’d laughed so much, enjoyed life so much. Odd that a man whose adult years had been imbued with such violence could be so tender.

      “Okay now?” he asked.

      She nodded. “I’m okay.” She glanced toward the road and shivered a little. “They won’t come looking for me?”

      “Not in that condition they won’t,” he said matter-of-factly. “And they’re very lucky,” he added, his whole face like drawn cord. “Ten years ago, I wouldn’t have been so gentle.”

      Both eyebrows went up at the imagery.

      “You know what I was,” he said quietly. “Until comparatively recent years, I lived a violent, uncertain life. Part of the man I was is still in me. I won’t ever hurt you,” he added. “But I have to come to grips with the old life before I can begin a new one. That’s going to take time.”

      “I think you’re saying something.”

      “Why, yes, I am,” he mused, watching her. “I’m giving notice of my intentions.”

      “Intentions?”

      “Last time I stopped. Next time I won’t.”

      Her mind wasn’t quite grasping what he was telling her. “You mean, with those men…?”

      “I mean with you,” he said gently. “I want you very badly, and I’m not walking away this time.”

      “You and what army?” she asked, aghast.

      “I won’t need an army. But you might.” He smiled. “Go on in. I’m having the house watched. You’ll be safe, I promise.”

      She pulled his shirt closer. “Thanks, Eb,” she said.

      He shrugged. “I have to take care of my own. Try to sleep.”

      She smiled at him. “Okay. You, too.”

      He watched her go up onto the porch and into the house, waiting for Dallas, who came out tight-lipped with barely a word to Sally as he passed her.

      He got into the truck with Eb and slammed the door.

      “What happened to Sally?” he asked, putting his cane aside.

      “Lopez’s men rushed the truck when she had a flat. I don’t know if it was premeditated,” he added coldly. “They could have lain in wait for her and caused the flat. The tire was almost bald, but it could have gone another few hundred miles.”

      “She looked uneasy.”

      “They assaulted her and may have raped her if I hadn’t shown up,” Eb said bluntly as he backed the truck and pulled out into the road. “I want to have another look, if the ambulance hasn’t picked them up yet.”

      “You sent for an ambulance?” Dallas asked with mock surprise. “That’s new.”

      “Well, we’re trying to blend in, aren’t we?” came the terse reply. He glared at the tall blond man. “Difficult to blend in if we let people die on the side of the road.”

      “If you say so.”

      They drove to where Sally’s pickup truck was still sitting, but there was no sign of the two men. The house nearby was dark. There wasn’t a soul in sight.

      As Eb digested that, red lights flashed and a big boxy ambulance pulled up behind the pickup truck, followed closely by a deputy sheriff in a patrol car.

      Eb pulled off the road and got out. He knew the deputy, Rich Burton, who was one of the department’s ablest members. They shook hands.

      “Where are the victims?” Rich asked.

      Eb grimaced. “Well, they were both lying right there when I took Sally home.”

      The deputy and the ambulance guys looked toward the flattened grass, but there weren’t any men lying there.

      “Unless one of you needs medical attention, we’ll be on our way,” one of the EMTs said with a wry glance.

      “Both of the perps did,” Eb said quietly. “At least one of them has broken bones.”

      The EMT gave him a wary look. “Not their legs, by the look of things.”

      “No. Not their legs.”

      The EMTs left and Rich joined Eb and Dallas beside the truck.

      “Something’s going on at that house,” Rich said quietly. “I’ve had total strangers stop me and tell me they’ve seen suspicious activity, men carrying boxes in and out. That’s not all. Some holding company bought a huge tract of land adjoining Cy Parks’s place, and it’s filling up with building supplies. There’s a contractor been hired and a plan has gone to the county commission’s planning committee about a business starting up there.”

      “How much do you know about the men who live here?” Eb asked coolly.

      Rich shrugged. “Not as much as I’d like to. But my contacts tell me that there’s a drug lord named Manuel Lopez, and the talk is that these guys belong to him. They’re mules. They run his narcotics for

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